Camelot enters a legal lottery

Following a recent missive from the National Lottery, Obiter is hoping that it is not too late to reconsider the decision to renew Camelot's licence.

To plug its special Christmas Millionaire Maker game - in which punters have to select six years from the last century - Camelot has put together a list of Lucky Legal Years:1924: The Old Bailey witnessed its first woman barrister;1976: Cherie Booth came top in her bar exams;1984: The Police and Criminal Evidence Act was passed;1994: John Grisham published The Client;1997: 'Ally McBeal' was first screened on TV;1998: The Human Rights Act was passed.Now, with the exception of the first and last perhaps (the first woman solicitor was admitted in 1922, if you would like to be more solicitor-focused about your choices), not by the longest stretch of imagination could the other events be said to have changed the course of legal history, at least for the better.

Not that Cherie Booth passing her exams was a bad thing, of course.

Indeed, where would legal receptions, openings, lectures and other sundry star-studded events be nowadays without her in attendance.